First found in Derbyshire where they were seated from ancient times, some say before the Norman Conquest in 1066. The earliest seat of the Slaters was at Barlborough near Chesterfield in Derbyshire, anciently the family name was a trade name of a roofer and was originally spelled Sclater, and this name is still used even as far north as the Shetlands and the Orkney Islands, where their territories were in Burnes.

For many English families, the political and religious disarray that shrouded England made the far away New World an attractive prospect. On cramped disease-ridden ships, thousands migrated to those British colonies that would eventually become Canada and the United States. Those hardy settlers that survived the journey often went on to make important contributions to the emerging nations in which they landed. Analysis of immigration records indicates that some of the first North American immigrants bore the name Slate or a variant listed above: John and Anne Slater who settled in Virginia in 1622; John Slater settled in Virginia in 1617, three years before the "Mayflower"; Joshua Slater settled in the Barbados in 1675.

Motto Translated: Virtue thrives under oppression.

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